Audiobooks by Peter A. Kwasniewski

Turned Around: Replying to Common Objections Against the Traditional Latin Mass

"In this often surprising book, Dr. Kwasniewski takes nine objections Catholics make to the traditional Latin Mass, and turns them around in a jiu jitsu fashion: “You are right—but you don’t realize how right you are!” To the objection that “the priest has his back to me. I can’t engage with him,” he replies: “Yes, he does, and no, you can’t—that’s exactly how it should be, and here’s why.” Or “at Mass the priest is doing everything and I’m just watching him”: “Yes, he alone does everything in his proper priestly way, and that makes it possible for you to do everything in the way proper to you.” Or: “It’s all fancy, like a royal court, which doesn’t fit with a democratic society like ours”: “That’s right, because we are in a royal court, the most royal and most courtly of all, and we have left democracy far behind.” By turning the tables around, Dr. Kwasniewski helps us to savor the Holy Spirit’s wisdom in forming over the centuries this venerable rite for the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass—the way that countless saints prayed the Mass day in and day out—and shows how we, too, stand to gain from its peculiar non-modern, even anti-modern features. Ultimately this tradition guides us to deeper conversion: the turning-around to God that is the most important of all conversions."

Peter A. Kwasniewski (Author), Peter A. Kwasniewski (Narrator)

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Good Music, Sacred Music, and Silence: Three Gifts of God for Liturgy and for Life

"More is at stake in the music we listen to or perform than most people are aware. In this vivacious and challenging work, Dr. Peter Kwasniewski—a philosopher, theologian, composer, conductor, and singer—explains why the great classical music of Western civilization is morally and intellectually good for us, as well as why certain other forms of music can actually be harmful. Kwasniewski then offers a defense of the magnificent treasury of sacred music in the Latin-rite Catholic Church and shows how well-suited it is to divine worship, especially the incomparable art form known as Gregorian chant. Questioned and abandoned in recent tumultuous decades, this outstanding heritage of beauty deserves to be restored for profound theological and spiritual reasons, a restoration our times are at last beginning to see as old prejudices fade away. Kwasniewski issues a poignant crie de cœur in favor of restoring the glorious sacred music of our tradition to every Roman Catholic church on the earth. No genuine liturgical renewal or deep Eucharistic revival can occur until this happens: music is that important. Finally, Kwasniewski shows how silence is as valuable as—indeed, at times, more valuable than—even the greatest music, precisely because music at its best opens the way to encountering a reality that transcends all we can say or sing. Written to be accessible to the non-specialist, Good Music, Sacred Music, and Silence: Three Gifts of God for Liturgy and for Life will benefit all Catholics, other Christians, and even aesthetically curious nonbelievers who wish to explore the art of music in general, its role in human life, its effects on morality, and its inspired and inspiring function in religion. Kwasniewski's wide-ranging erudition and sound argumentation provide essential musical guidance for clergy, musicians, teachers, and parents."

Peter A. Kwasniewski (Author), Kennedy Hall (Narrator)

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The Once and Future Roman Rite: Returning to the Traditional Latin Liturgy after Seventy Years of Ex

"In his latest book, Dr. Peter Kwasniewski argues that, ever since the new liturgical books following the Second Vatican Council came into force, Roman Catholic faithful have suffered the effects of a hasty and far-reaching reform permeated with nominalism, voluntarism, Protestantism, rationalism, antiquarianism, hyperpapalism, and other modern errors. Man is not master over divine liturgy, Dr. Kwasniewski emphasizes; rather, all of us are called to be stewards of the sacred, from the lowest-ranking layman to the pope himself. Dr. Kwasnieski shows that sacred Tradition is the guiding principle for all authentic Christian liturgy, which originates from Christ and is guided by the Holy Spirit throughout the life of the Church. His principal thesis in this work is that the prominent identifying traits of the classical Roman Rite—and indeed of all traditional rites, Eastern and Western—are absent from the Novus Ordo, estranging it from their company and making it impossible to call it “the Roman Rite.” To respond to this crisis of rupture, Dr. Kwasniewski calls for a full return to the traditional rite, the Roman Rite in its robust, perennial richness, for which no special permission is or could ever be needed—as exposited by Pope Benedict XVI. Fidelity to the traditional Latin Liturgy is, at its root, fidelity to the Roman Church and to Christ Himself, Who has lovingly inspired the growth and perfection of our religious rites for two thousand years. This awe-inspiring gift of Tradition allows us to taste, even now, the banquet of the promised land of heaven."

Peter A. Kwasniewski (Author), Kevin O'Brien (Narrator)

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